


Win First, Think Later

by Lobel



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Coming of Age, Fluff and Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Ignoring ToA: Wizards, M/M, Post-Canon, Rating May Change, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobel/pseuds/Lobel
Summary: With House Tarron reinstated as the rulers of Akiridion-5, Krel can finally relax with his human friends in Arcadia. But adjusting to a peaceful life means confronting inner demons, and Krel would rather pretend they were all defeated with Morando.
Relationships: Seamus Johnson/Krel Tarron
Comments: 25
Kudos: 83





	1. One

Shortly after Krel’s alien identity was revealed to all of Arcadia, the town that was mostly accepting of the bizarre circumstances the universe bestowed upon their small community, something new and strange happened---but only to Krel.

Krel wasn’t aware of it until it became a common occurrence for Toby to giggle randomly when they walked down the school halls. The first few times, Krel looked around for the joke he had missed. “Dude,” was all Toby had said, shaking his head like _Krel_ was the joke. But he’d never explain, regardless of how Krel pestered, only offering a pitiful, “I don’t know if you’re ready for this, considering you’re kind of young.”

“We’re the same age!” Krel had said, exasperated that he was missing out on something Toby knew, and therefore, the whole school probably knew. He was slow to understand human culture, even after months of living it. Even the language was still a struggle. It was always changing, words falling in and out of style faster than Krel could learn them. Humans were fascinating, and so was the joke that Toby would not divulge---the joke that was becoming an insider joke based on how frequently other people would giggle, people being girls.

He thought of asking somebody else, but he didn’t want to come off as an uncultured swine, which he understood was outdated slang, but he liked it the same as he liked “dope,” which Toby said wasn’t in style anymore and was best replaced by “lit,” which was becoming outdated anyway, so maybe Krel should stop using both of them.

Toby didn’t judge Krel. He enlightened him to human culture, especially of the popular nature, but this giggling business was the one thing he would not lighten.

Several weeks into the giggling, Krel began to notice the stares from his classmates. They looked away when he caught them, and he wondered if their eyes had been tracking him all of his time in Arcadia. He wondered if he hadn’t noticed until now, because he had a reason to suspect them of insider joking.

“I am getting sick from your secrecy, Toby,” Krel said one Saturday afternoon. Toby was relaxed in one of the hover chairs in Krel’s workspace, refurbished like the rest of Mothership after Morando’s attack.

“You’ll have to elaborate on that. I’m not sure what this secrecy is referring to…” Toby smiled, giving his chair a spin.

“You know exactly what I mean. Your giggling, and the others’ giggling, and the _stares_.” Krel pointed at Toby with four index fingers. He preferred his Akiridion form when he was home---he preferred it all the time. He didn’t have a preference until last summer, when Aja and the others left to reclaim Akiridion-5 and reestablish peace. Sometimes he thought of it as his true form, which carried a meaning he didn’t want to interpret. English was his weakest subject anyway. He wouldn’t understand himself any better.

“Are you sure you want to know? It might be hard to swallow.” Toby lined his fingers together in a pyramid.

“I will swallow it in one gulp.” Krel crossed all four of his arms across his chest. “Tell me now or I will give you the cold shoulder for a week.”

Toby sighed. “Okay, I suppose since you’re a junior now, you’re ready for the big boy league.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Our years don’t line up perfectly. You’re probably older than me chronologically, but mentally I’m older.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Assuming you’re sixteen, you’re old enough for the truth. Now, how do I put this lightly…” Toby stroked his round chin. “You know that humans are divided into races, right?”

“Yes, I know I am a Latino.”

“And you know that humans have preferences for certain races? Er, not preferences. Scratch that. They _say_ they have preferences, but that’s a clean way of saying they _fetishize_ people.”

“You mean sexual attraction?” Krel pursed his lips. “Toby, are you confessing a sexual preference for Latino humans?”

“You know what sex is?”

“Do you really think I wouldn’t know? You humans are obsessed with it.”

“Human teenagers for sure.” Toby studied Krel quietly. “Do Akiridions…?”

Krel sighed, remembering the two other times he was asked a variant of the question, once from Eli, once from Steve. As obsessed as humans were with the joining of bodies, they often shied away from blatant discussion. 

“Do not stray from the topic. What is causing the giggling and the staring?”

“I’ll tell you if you answer my question.”

“Toby, what is it that Mary called Steve when he said he missed Aja’s...luscious lips? Horny dog? That is you.”

“Thank you.” Toby rolled his eyes. “Have you heard of Yellow Fever? Assuming not, because you’re you, it’s when people have a fetish for Asian people. After you went full on glowy and defeated Morando, you revealed a new type of race: the alien race.”

“Akiridion.”

“What I’m saying is that some people have a thing for aliens. I mean aliens in general, like ET.”

Krel grimaced. Humans imagined joining with that wrinkly sac of flesh?

“Bad example. Not ET. You remember the twi’leks in _Star Wars_ , the aliens with head-tails that were enslaved for their beauty? Or the--- the--- I cannot believe I’m drawing a blank on hot alien species. My brain went straight to twi’leks and made camp.”

Krel didn’t need Toby to finish his long-winding thought process to understand the point being made. He was flattered, but this couldn’t be pursued. He felt none of the tingles in his lifecore that Mama had said he would feel.

He had never needed to disengage somebody’s attention, and he had never felt lacking for it. It came when it came, Mama had said, but if he felt nothing for the pursuer, he had to say no immediately to reduce complications.

“Toby, you’re a very nice person, but---”

“Woah woah woah. Slow your horses, dude. I am not interested in you like that. You’re cute, but totally not my type.”

Krel scowled, his impatience rising. “Then why do you giggle all. The. Time.”

“Because you are other people’s type! Other people like aliens---I do too, but they like _you_ specifically---and now that you’re openly alien… You’re a math person. Do the math.”

He already had. 

The result was hard to swallow, but he wouldn’t tell Toby that. It seemed...impossible that he was found attractive. He often felt like a blank robot. Seen, recognized, acknowledged as royalty or belonging to a fascinating extraterrestrial species, but nothing beyond that. Mama, Papa, and Aja had seen him as more. Varvatos as well. But they were gone. Half had returned to the All Core, where all Life Cores returned after they burned out. The other half were forty-thousand lightyears away, too busy with a war-torn planet to visit him more than once a month.

“Give it some time. It’s a hard pill to swallow.” Toby slipped out of his chair onto his feet. “Want to get some coffee? I’m parched for caffeine.”

“I hate coffee.”

“Then drink tea.”

Krel grabbed his serrator, taking a soft breath before he triggered his disguise.

# # #

“How’s it taste?” Toby said.

“Better than coffee, though there is this underlying taste that reminds me of it.” Krel liked that the tea was sweet and faintly tasted of the flatness of coffee. He usually ordered water when he went out with Toby and the few others who called him friend.

“How long did it take you to like coffee?” Krel said, noting the smooth way Toby downed the hot drink. 

“Not sure. One day I hated it, the next I craved it. Someday, Krel, it will be your turn to embrace the beans.”

They were outside the local coffee and donut shop, sitting in the shade of an umbrella. It wasn’t hot out, and the sun was blanketed in thin clouds, but sometimes it was nice to hide from the sky, as though the flimsy material would shield him from prying eyes in space. There weren’t bounties on his head, or evil dictators seeking to eliminate his coreline. But little comforts like this were hard to abandon.

“Are you thinking about it?” Toby said.

“The coffee?”

“Alien Fever.” Toby became thoughtful at Krel’s unimpressed look. “Green Fever? No, _Blue_ Fever. We could call it Neon Fever.”

“I’d rather call it nothing.” Krel didn’t want to put a name on something that would fade as Arcadia got used to the Akiridion presence. The excitement of an otherworldly invasion had jostled Arcadia out of its routine of small town boredom. Once life settled into regularity, the giggling and stares would stop. Or, the stares would continue if he resumed upstaging his junior year math and science teacher. He hadn’t commandeered a white board since the invasion, too tired to rise from his desk and garner attention. He didn’t want to feel the emptiness of being seen but _not_ being seen---a contradiction he twisted himself into loops to try understanding.

How could someone be the very center of a town’s attention, and feel ignored? Did that mean if everybody truly ignored him, he’d feel worse than nothing? What was worse than nothing? The human poets probably had a lot to say about that.

“I know it’s gross, but that’s the truth. You asked for it. I delivered with two-day shipping.” Toby shrugged and played with his phone.

Krel sipped his tea, swishing the sweet and bitter liquid before he swallowed. It was on the left side of too hot, or right side; however the saying went. He wondered if something was wrong with him. He had friends. His family stayed in touch whenever they found time in their busy schedules. The world wasn’t in danger. _Both_ worlds weren’t in danger. Earth and Akiridion were safe.

“---but there’s no spark. Everything I did was to impress my dad.”

Krel glanced up at the familiar voice, swishing another mouthful of tea. Seamus Johnson was walking up to the coffee shop with a phone to his ear. His eyes were unfocused as he held open the door to let a couple girls out, nodding at the girls’ thanks, and maybe something he heard on the phone. Then he started in, saying, “No, I definitely want to leave.”

The last time they had interacted was on the final day of school. They had finished their final math exam at the same time. Krel had technically finished first, thirty minutes into the two-hour test period, and had waited for someone else to finish so he wouldn’t come off as absurdly fast. Seamus finished fifteen minutes later, per Krel’s expectations, and Ms. Janeth hadn’t thought a thing about her two smartest students turning in their exams at the same time.

Everybody had to stay seated until the final bell, and as a congratulatory gift to the class, Ms. Janeth allowed those who had finished early to use their phones. Krel opted for a nap instead, his head pillowed on his arms. He never drifted off, his line of sight directed through a gap in the staggered desks that led right at Seamus.

Seamus was an interesting human, one of the smartest and strongest students on campus. According to Toby, brains and brawn didn’t go together. You were either smart or athletic. Seamus was both. Krel had studied Seamus as the class ticked on, remembering Seamus’ horrible father. “Close-minded,” Eli had said one day. “He’s the most vocal bigot in Arcadia. That’s why Seamus is like that, pushing kids around and being an all-around jerk.”

But the last day of school, as Seamus and Krel walked into the rising summer heat, Krel had felt differently. They hadn’t shared words beyond “Good job” and “Have a great summer,” the latter coming from Seamus. And as banal as it had been reading that over a dozen times in his yearbook, hearing it with a smile had been nice. Something in Seamus’s eyes had made Krel wonder if that saying about apples not falling far from trees was true.

“Dude, a new _Transformers_ movie coming out in June. I’m so on that.” Toby chuckled at his phone. “Who would win, Akiridions or Transformers?”

“I’m going to empty my bladder,” Krel said, standing from the table. He banged his knee as he stepped around. “Shit.”

“You’re incorporating human swears into your lingo.” Toby nodded appreciatively. “My son is growing.”

The coffee shop was small with windowed walls, the daylight flooding in to make the shop brighter inside than out. Seamus was sitting at one of the small circle tables near the pick-up end of the counter, still on his phone and tapping his fingers against the table in a thoughtful rhythm.

“It’s not that it isn’t fun. It’s just not for me.” Seamus chuckled at something said on the other line. “Coding isn’t for everybody. My sister calls it a lifesucking job, but she got into the wrong side of it. Now she’s---yeah, developing apps and having fun.”

Krel leaned against a pillar several tables away. Seamus wasn’t talking very loud, but Akiridions had better hearing than humans, and so Krel could every word. If he had a sound amplifier, he’d be able to pick up the entire conversation. He could make one when he returned to Mothership, though he’d be lacking in Akiridion tech. He couldn’t ask for any to be sent via wormhole since the Akiridion Interstellar Council would require a lengthy petition to determine whether the benefits outweighed the costs, and eavesdropping on conversations through primitive communication tech wouldn’t tip the balance in Krel’s favor.

“Hold on a sec. Krel? Is that you?”

Krel smiled and stuck out his hand. “Yes, it is me. Krel. Hello, Seamus. It has been a day since we saw each other. How has that day been?”

Seamus nodded slowly. “Uh, Lori? I’ll call you right back. Krel, it’s good to see you. How’s--- How’s Aja doing? You’re still talking?”

“Of course I’m still talking with my sister.”

“I know. It’s been a few months since we talked and…” Seamus sighed. “I never really got the chance to apologize for my dad.”

Krel frowned. “Why should you apologize for him? You aren’t him.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I try talking to him about it and… Sometimes I think we’re getting somewhere and then he says something else.” He shook his head.

“Did you go to space camp?” Krel said, wanting to shift the conversation to something that wasn’t sad.

“Yeah, over the summer. It was great. Space is pretty amazing, but you’d know that better than anyone on this planet.”

“Not including the others hiding on Earth.” Krel smiled.

“There are more?” Seamus laughed. “Of course there are. Do you know them?”

“Do you know all of the humans on this planet?”

“Sorry. Do you know any of the ones hiding?”

“Why do you want to know? So you can report them to Area 49B?”

Seamus sighed. “Can we erase the past few minutes?”

“Sure, though that would include the beginning of this conversation. Perhaps, twenty seconds?” Krel tipped his lips into a playful smile. He felt the same connection he had on the last day of school, when their eyes met and there was an understanding of expectations, though Seamus knew nothing about Krel running away from royal expectations.

Something snapped in Krel’s core. He had stayed behind because Arcadia was his home, where his friends lived. But was that really why, when he still felt lonely and the people he’d grown up with were on another planet? Did he stay behind for friends and the intriguing human species, or did he stay to delay the inevitable shift in royalty?

His sister was the Queen, being the eldest heir. Krel was second-in-line to the throne, but that didn’t mean he had no responsibilities. Eventually he’d need to return to Akiridion-5 to attend to his new responsibilities.

“Forgot something?” Seamus said.

“Yes, I think I did.” Krel ran a hand through his hair. It was growing out, a strange feature of the disguise that had taken time to notice. As his Akiridion form grew, so would his human form. It was a comforting thought. “I have to go home and water my plants.”

“Okay.” Seamus didn’t look confused the way others did when Krel used a lame excuse. “I’ll see you later.”

Seamus held out his hand. Krel took a moment to stick the correct hand out. This was one of the stranger forms of human greeting. He couldn’t help feeling slighted; this was the greeting between people who didn't know each other, and Seamus knew Krel enough to forgo handshaking.

“Where do your other hands go when you’re a human?” Seamus said, looking at Krel’s torso like he might find invisible appendages.

“Mass displacement,” Krel said.

“Right.” Seamus nodded.

“The mass of my secondary arms is stored in subspace.”

“That makes sense.” Seamus smiled. “So…” He shook their still-joined hands a second time.

Krel’s hand sprang open. “Bye.”

Outside, he nearly walked into Toby, who had been pressed against the window wall to see inside. Krel hadn’t noticed, and hopefully, neither had Seamus.

“Dude! Were you holding hands with Seamus Johnson?” Toby whispered, walking fast-paced next to Krel to the parking lot. “He got swol over summer. I think he hit the next phase of puberty. There are three. First is middle school. Second is high school. Third is college.”

“I thought ‘swol’ was outdated,” Krel said.

“It’s aging well. What did you talk about?”

“He went to space camp.”

They got into Toby’s car, an old but reliable car donated by one of his grandmother’s chess friends. Krel had his license but no car. His hoverboard and friends’ rides were enough for his personal transport.

“Is that code for boot camp?”

“He’s not swol,” Krel said. “He looks like any human teen boy who does athletics.”

“He looks better. I bet he got into lifting. He could bench press you, skinny twig you are.”

Krel crossed his arms. “I am not a twig.”

“You’re right. I was two letters off. You’re a twink.”

Krel furrowed his eyebrows. “What is a twink?”

“A story for another time.”

# # #

Lucy and Ricky greeted Krel when he arrived home. They served him dinner, a Thai noodle dish they had prepared per the recipe in a new cookbook Lucy had acquired during one of her trips downtown. She and Ricky were slowly branching away from Mothership, interacting with other adult humans and altering their behavior to better blend into the community. It was a little too late for that, but Krel liked that they had something to do other than be his legal guardians.

Krel spent the night in his workspace, tinkering with salvaged tech from the battle with Morando to forget about the day’s revelations. Nothing much was left, not even the Omen armor that had disintegrated shortly after Morando died. They had been programmed to obey his core, and without one, their only order was to cease existence.

His head started to pound with a headache, the consequences of spending long hours under bright lights and straining his eyes. Usually Mothership would tell him to sleep. She was gone, leaving a husk of a home, and his parents---

“Krel, my favorite son!” Ricky slid into the workspace, sliding on socks.

“I’m busy,” Krel said, blinking moisture into his dry eyes.

“It’s late. Time for recharging your sleepy, sleepy head.”

“Not yet.”

“Son, even your mother and I need sleep, and we’re blanks!”

“I’m not your son,” Krel muttered. He turned, holding a communication orb he had cut out of the few crashed Akiridion ships that didn’t explode into discernable bits. “I’m a teenager. Staying up late is what teenagers do.”

“Are you giving your father attitude, young man?” Lucy appeared in a swirl of red polka dots.

“Fine, since I can’t work in peace, I’ll sleep.” Krel pushed past the two, rubbing his eyes with two hands and using the others to rub his temples.

“Everything will be better in the morning,” Lucy said.

Krel slammed his door in their faces.

“Did you brush your teeth?” Ricky said.

Ten minutes later, he was washed and under his blankets. The day washed over him, making his headache strain against his skull. He buried his face between the mattress and his pillows, his hands pressing them down on his head until he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not watched "Trollhunters," so this fic is purposely vague about anything Troll-related.
> 
> Please leave a comment! I haven't written fanfic in years, and it'd be nice to hear that I still got the touch!


	2. Two

Junior year was filled with major stresses for humans. Krel wasn’t planning on attending the next level of academics after he graduated from Arcadia Oaks. He didn’t have the thousands of dollars necessary for payment, and the concept of Student Loans was terrifying. Debt did not run large on Akiridion, where all education was free, which explained why human technology was primitive. 

Human life, especially in the country of America, was expensive.

“You could get a job,” Krel told Ricky and Lucy during Sunday morning breakfast. 

“Hmmm. I suppose I could,” Ricky said, stroking his cheek. “Human fathers provide for their families while their wives stay home for the kids.”

“Don’t forget that human mothers can work too,” Lucy said, refilling Krel’s glass of water. “I can work as a--- a--- Krel, darling, what would be a good career for Mommy?”

Krel hated that word. On Akiridion, mothers were often called “Mother” or “Mama.” The variant of “Mommy” and its nickname had fallen out of common use hundreds of keltons ago because...Krel didn’t know why, but he supposed it had to do with it sounded weird, like “moist.”

“You would work in one of the tiny shops downtown. The money box,” Krel said. Many of the women who worked the money boxes looked like mothers. One of the really talkative ones who worked at the local thrift shop also dressed like Lucy. It was a suitable occupation for people who didn’t stop talking. They annoyed the customers into rushing their purchases.

“Human fathers are reported to bring in more money than mothers,” Ricky said.

Lucy smiled sharp like a serrator blade. “Mothers can make more money than fathers.”

Lucy and Ricky had been arguing about the declining funds for groceries when Krel entered the kitchen. Funds was a fancy word for the small donation the people of Arcadia had given Krel to repair the Mothership and resituate himself. Most of it had gone toward furniture, with the remains saved to keep Krel’s stomach full. Ricky and Lucy didn’t need to eat or drink---though they did for recreational fun, and to taste Krel’s food for burned or uncooked ingredients---so that lessened the grocery bill. But still, living cost too many dollars.

Ignoring the bickering blanks, he took in the empty chairs that used to seat Aja, Zadra, and sometimes Luug, the couch where Vex would sit watching the morning news, and the empty spaces where Mother used to float around. There was a lot of space now, for how few bodies Mothership housed.

“Bye,” Krel said, hiking his backpack onto his shoulders. The blanks bickered even as he left.

One of the negatives to the blanks becoming more human was acting more human. Arguing. Inserting themselves into his life when he wanted to be alone. From what he’d seen, this was how human parents acted. He didn’t need human parents. What he needed he’d never have again. He had to move onward, upward.

# # #

“Over the summer I did some reflecting,” Steve was saying as he and Krel walked down the halls to the cafeteria, “and I got stuck in this really old, but really good memory of that bonfire in the woods. Remember when Aja lost her serrator and I thought it was some super fancy protractor. I was so stupid. Haha. Anyway, what do you say we throw another bonfire party this weekend?”

Krel pretended he didn’t notice the stares following him. The  _ fetishizing  _ stares. He had looked into human fetishes on Google, his favorite search engine---though he did like the rewards Bing gave for using it---and had been thoroughly disgusted. There were weird but understandable fetishes and bad fetishes, and he was firmly planting Neon Fever into bad fetishes with feet and pain. People liked  _ pain _ . Ugh, maybe General Morando had been one of them. Aaaand now he was thinking of gross things.

“In the woods again? That’d be fun. I like the woods. Sometimes. The trees can be mean,” Krel said, keeping his eyes down as often as he could afford without running into people, all who liked looking at him. Looking but not  _ looking _ . It gave Krel a terribly empty feeling.

“It’ll be a pre-Homecoming party, but a few weeks in advance because I can’t party the week of. I have to conserve my energy. Colleges are scouting. The Palchuk can’t disappoint.” Steve laughed, then became distraught. “If only my nina-kicking angel were here to see me own it.”

“Yes, if only she weren’t busy with galactic-sized responsibilities, then she’d have time for a silly human game of kick and tackle.”

“Don’t diss what you don’t understand. I can explain the rules again, but if you didn’t get them the first three times, I don’t think you’ll get them the fourth. Maybe the tenth, but you’ll have to ask someone else to teach you. Coach will be more than glad to give a three-hour lesson on tactics.”

“No thank you. I would rather be in my lab.”

They grabbed their trays and took their usual seats around the table near the corner of the building, Toby joining them soon after. 

“Sup, dudes,” Toby said. “Guess who’s getting his braces off in the next six months.”

“Sweet! Congrats.” Steve fist-bumped him. “You’re gonna knock people out with your shiny new teeth.”

“Hopefully I don’t blind Darci with them. She loves my juicy body.”

“I don’t know what is worse. Watching you become mushy-mushy with Darci or listening to Steve cry over my sister.” Krel mumbled into the veggie burger that the school had started implementing into its menu this week. It was better than the meat burgers.

“No, you know what’s worse, Mr. Singleton? You being angsty because you have nobody to hold,” Toby said.

“Unless you’re…” Steve danced his shoulders in that way humans did when they didn’t know how to say their thoughts. “I saw this documentary on TV about how sexuality is a spectrum, and maybe, you know, you don’t  _ like  _ people in that way. Krel, if you’re happily single, that’s happily fine.”

“Ay yi yi.” Humans and their labels.

Being against the walls wasn’t enough to deter the stares, and Toby made sure Krel knew people were watching. His giggles morphed, turning into low throat noises.

“Do you have something in your throat?” Steve said. “It’s kind of concerning.”

Krel laughed and Toby stopped making the giggle-throat sounds. 

After they ate, Steve brought up the bonfire party, stirring bittersweet memories for Krel. He missed Aja and Eli, Varvatos and Zadra, living in the palace with Mama and Papa. His throat tightened, a sign of dreaded human tears. He abandoned his memories. There was only moving into the future, onward and upward.

“Is Aja seriously too busy for a small party?” Steve said, pulling Krel into his memories again.

  
“Akiridion’s future is more important than any puny gathering,” Krel said.

“It makes sense, if you think about it,” Toby said. “Once you leave Arcadia, you don’t come back. Rule #2 of the Arcadia Bubble.”

There were three rules, but they always changed. Rule #2 used to be that if you were afforded the opportunity to move out of Arcadia, you took if only if you never wanted to move back. Rule #2 had also been what happens in Arcadia, stays in Arcadia, but that had also been attributed to Rule #3. Krel had never heard a Rule #1, but Toby must’ve been saving that for the ultimate rule, when he eventually came up with it.

“Oh lookie here,” Toby said, grinning at Krel. Mary Wong and Darci Scott were walking to them, Mary staring at Krel while Darci talked out the side of a grin. Mary’s eyes bugged and she looked aside.

If a wormhole opened underneath Krel and deposited him back home, that’d make his day.

“Hey, babe,” Toby said as Darci wrapped her arms around him in a backwards hug.

“We’re due for a date.” Darci’s hands slid to Toby’s shoulders.

Steve sighed in loneliness.

Looking at the couple felt like intruding. Krel diverted his gaze, accidentally looking into Mary’s big, dark eyes.

Krel was not taking this.

“I will return. Momentarily.” He swung his legs out from the bench.

“Where are you going?” Steve said.

“I think he has an overactive bladder. He had the same issue at Pavel’s Coffee,” Toby said.

“My bladder is fine,” Krel muttered. He went to the restroom to needlessly wash his hands. He watched his reflection in the mirror, imagining his Akiridion form appearing over his smaller human body. He wondered if that was how humans saw him now, human skin over neon blue.

He rubbed his fleshy cheeks. Human and Akiridion flesh weren’t so different to touch. Akiridion skin was tougher to cut, bruise. It didn’t give as easily.

“I don’t have the best foresight, but I think something’s going on with you.”

Krel glared at Steve in the mirror. “Foresight is not the correct word. You mean awareness.”

“That’s kind of insulting. And wrong. I’m an awareness beast on the field.”

Krel combed his damp hands through his hair. It was thick, wavy, and he wondered if that was part of the kink since his Akiridion hair had similar properties. 

“Toby says people are fetishizing me because of my Akiridion form. Humans are bored of their own kind so they look to other life forms for their pleasures. Is that why Aja is your angel?”

“Woah, no way. She’s an angel because she fell from the sky and she’s gorgeous, human and Akiridion. The ninja-kicking is self explanatory.”

“She’s not a ninja. She’s a warrior, as valiant and cunning on the battlefield as Seklos.”   
  


Steve leaned against the toilet stalls. “Did Toby seriously say people fetishize you? How does he even know that?”

“Ask him. I don’t know.” Krel pushed out the restroom, Steve on his heels.

Toby could be lying or making things up. People could be staring for another reason, maybe wondering how his human disguise worked or searching for the Akiridion form beneath it. And if they liked how he looked then, maybe he should take it as a compliment. He hadn’t been liked before. He knew people thought him annoying, hard of understanding common culture, and so they had nothing to say in his yearbook but “have a great summer.” 

He laughed to himself. What a great summer he’d had. He was orphaned, forty-thousand lightyears away from the remains of his shattered family. He wondered if he had made the right choice, staying behind in a community that still viewed him as Other. He’d be Other on Akiridion-5 as a Royal, but at least he’d be rid of this fetishizing, this empty feeling of not mattering beyond Steve and Toby---

He thought he was staying among dozens of friends. He had been blinded by the relief of a won war. A Victory High. Because after all was rebuilt and life was back to normal, he was still a king-in-waiting to another planet.

His throat tightened in an eyeblink. Moisture welled behind his eyes. He stopped walking.

Steve bumped into him, grabbing his shoulders to hold him upright or keep him steady. He couldn’t tell and he didn’t have the brain energy to think because there were more people at the table. Seamus and his friend Logan, who Krel had never heard speak, Shannon and her girlfriend whose name he couldn't remember, and they were all looking at him along Toby.

“They’re back!” Toby waved his hands like they were way off in the distance. People all around looked at Toby’s commotion, then at Krel, and there were too many eyes looking.

Did they all see him as Other? His friends too? 

As a human, he was Other. As an Akiridia, he was Other.

He turned to Steve. “I---” He tried to finish,  _ I’m going outside _ , but the words were getting corrupted by his welling tears.

“Krel, what’s wrong?” Steve took his elbows. Krel pulled away.

Aware of people staring, he fled the cafeteria. Whispers followed him out.

# # #

Krel blotted his flushed face in another restroom. His eyes were red, the veins thickened to angry squiggles. He blew his nose until it might bleed. Crying was messier business as a human. Akiridions didn’t look as wrinkled and soggy when they mourned.

He splashed water on his face many times, hoping the cold will take out the red in his face. It didn’t quite do that, but he felt better.

Lunch would go on for a while, so he walked around campus. His hair dripped water on his shirt, stray droplets trailing down his face. He rubbed them away, hoping the friction wasn’t irritating his skin into a deeper red. Human skin was highly sensitive with too many possible afflictions to guard against.

Thinking too much had lowered him to this pitiful state. He emptied his head of them and let himself breathe the cool autumn air. Earth had pleasant seasons, though he despised the highest peaks and lowest peaks of temperature. The middle was the best, not too hot or too cold.

“Hey!”

Krel knew that was directed at him. The word was a bolt between his shoulder blades, urging him to stop, turn, and wait for Seamus to jog up to him.

“The others would rather argue over whose fault it is you ran out, so I came to check on you.” Seamus’ smile was small and gentle, as though anything wider might be offensive to Krel’s mental being. “How are you doing?”

“How does it look?” Krel’s arms flopped at his sides. “I’m having a moment. It’s a very bad moment. It doesn’t feel any good.” But at least his voice wasn’t wobbly like he was the first time he tried hoverboarding.

Seamus nodded like he understood enough to not ask about it. “If I can help in any way, let me know.”

Krel studied Seamus, comparing him against his memories of the previous school year. “The summer has changed you.”

Seamus held his arms out. “You can’t expect anything less from space camp. I owe you majorly for letting me go.”

“I had nothing to lose.” Krel had only given up some pride and self-importance, though Aja had told him he shouldn’t have needed to sacrifice anything to be only “okay” to one person. Aja, who he shouldn’t think about unless he wanted another river of tears down his cheeks.

“Are you going to the bonfire party?” Seamus said.

“Maybe. I have to ask the Blanks. My parents, I mean.”

Seamus’ face changed to confusion. “I thought---”

“My legal guardians,” Krel said.

“Ah.” Seamus looked embarrassed. “I hope you can make it. It’ll be fun, and if you like drinking, someone will be supplying. Not me. I can’t risk my dad noticing his stock getting drained. He’ll notice if one bottle is gone.”

“I do like drinking. Water is my favorite.”

“We’ll have water too.”

Krel nodded, and for a moment they only smiled at each other. No words exchanged. Then the next moment came. Suddenly feeling awkward, Krel said, “I should get my stuff.”

They went back to the cafeteria. The stares resumed as people realized Krel had returned. Everybody was still at his table, discussing him---obvious from the serious cut of their expressions---and he quietly nodded at Steve’s question of him being okay.

“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Krel waved, not looking at their faces. He could imagine the expressions from the silence.

He thought Seamus would follow him out, but outside the cafeteria he was alone.

# # #

The next day, Toby and Steve were careful with every word. They smiled a lot...not in happy ways. Every smile was corrupted with a sad trait, like concern or pity. The other students were no better. Everybody had heard of his moment, possibly due to Mary broadcasting it over social media (“Let’s all be nice to Krel, our resident hero! #RandomActsOfKindness”). 

He hated it. He was like Luug after the neutering, a poor creature in need of comfort after an embarrassment.

“I am not made of porcelain,” Krel grumbled after school, as he walked to the Mothership with Steve and Toby.

“Nobody’s ever seen you like that, dude. It freaked us all out!” Toby exclaimed. “You were all Blue Screen of Death.”

“I thought you were gonna pass out! You literally froze up.” Steve jogged a few steps ahead and froze like a robot with arms bent in sharp angles. He dropped his hands as they caught up. “What happened back there? If you want to tell us, I mean. Do you want to tell us? Seamus wouldn’t tell us anything except you were okay.”

“Why’d you talk to  _ Seamus _ ?” Toby said. “I know you were all cozy at Pavel’s Coffee, holding hands and smiling into each other’s eyes---”

“You can’t smile into eyes,” Krel said as Steve said, “Holding hands? Whaaaaaa?”

“We were handshaking,” Krel said. “He was apologizing for an incident and I accepted it. He proved himself a not-butsnack.”

“He got hot  _ and  _ nice over summer,” Toby said in disbelief. “That violates the Law of Fairness. One shouldn’t be hot and nice and smart.” 

“Lots of people break that rule. Me and Aja are prime examples,” Steve said.

“You’re hot and nice, but I wouldn’t go full smart. I’d say fifty percent on that.”

Lucy greeted them at the door. “Welcome home, sweetie! I see you’ve brought friends! Help yourself to the snacks in the cabinets! We’ve refilled them.” 

“Hi Lucy.” Steve waved. “I like your hair. Princess Leia has the best buns.” He coughed. “Rey is a ripoff.”

“She is  _ not _ ,” Toby sniffed.

Krel went through the cabinets, gasping at the bags of chips, boxes of crackers and cereal, packets of flavored dry cereal, and more that he could not see.”

“Where did you get all this?” Krel said.

“Your father found a grocery store full of bargains called an outlet. Everything costs less! I marked the ones that expire soon, so eat up! Nothing goes to waste in this household.” Lucy laughed and withdrew her broom from nowhere.

“Where’s Ricky?” Toby said.

“He’s job searching!” Lucy said. “Krel told him to get a job.”

“I told both of you to get jobs.” Krel tossed a bag of soon-to-be-expired guacamole chips on the counter. He didn’t know what guacamole was, but he knew that was an avocado pictured on the bag. “As my legal guardians, you provide me shelter, food, clothing---everything necessary to keep me healthy and functioning. You need money for that. Money is acquired through  _ jobs _ .”

“And crime,” Toby said.

“Do not do crime.” Krel opened the fridge and gasped. “It’s full. How much cheaper is this outlet?”

Lucy didn’t respond because she was sweeping the porch and humming loudly.

“Jeez, Krel, you look like you haven’t seen this much food in...ever, really,” Steve said. “Haven’t you seen my fridge or Toby’s?”

“Don’t act like I’m some starving orphan. Ricky and Lucy always argue about how to pay for groceries. I didn’t know we had enough money for all this at once.” Krel poured the guys a sparkly clear soda that wasn’t Sprite but he wasn’t bothered to look for the name on the obnoxiously colorful label. 

“You’re not getting any more donations?” Toby said.

“It’s not recurring. We had to stretch it thin to make it last this long. Now Ricky is getting a job, but I don’t think it will be enough unless Lucy helps. They’re not trained for anything beyond serving me.”

“Can’t you download skills in them since they’re robots? You could make Ricky an accountant and Lucy a fashion designer. That’s easily six figures.”

Steve looked at Toby like that was the dumbest thing ever. “Do you know much they’d make if they were lawyers? A  _ lot _ , and law is easier for robots. They’re all fact based.”

“I cannot download law into them,” Krel said. “Their processors cannot handle the information surge.”

“Then download it slowly,” Toby said.

“Can’t you use another Blank robot?” Steve said. “Make another set of them and start from scratch?”

“Morando destroyed our remaining supply of Blanks, and my lab isn’t equipped for a task that demanding. I only repaired enough of the ship to be modestly functional. It’s nowhere near as powerful when Mother was here.” Krel downed his cup of soda, the burn against his throat making his eyes water.

The boys crunched on chips, Krel avoiding his friends’ eyes. He didn’t want to see them feeling sorry for him.

“So...are you going to the bonfire?” Toby said.

“It’s better than staying in my lab all day,” Krel supposed.

“Yeah, and Seamus will be there, so.” Toby was so casual he wasn’t casual.

“I still don’t understand what this Seamus thing is about---” Steve began, and Toby nodded and said,  _ Me too, dude  _ “---but I’m glad you’re coming. You need to have more fun, nerd.”

Toby pointed fingers at Krel. “We’re going to have fun. So much of it. You’ll get drunk on it. Maybe literally. Can Akiridions get drunk? I never saw Aja drink.”

Krel shrugged. “Varvatos always said alcoholic beverages might be harmful to Akiridions. It might reduce our discretion, delete our memories, destroy our body coordination, cause us to reveal Royal secrets---it sounds dangerous.”

“It sounds like getting drunk,” Toby said.

“And that’s supposed to be fun?” Krel frowned.

“You don’t have to get drunky-drunk. You can get buzzed. That’s the best in my opinion,” Steve said. “You’re not sober, but you’re not drunk, so you’re not in the danger zone blackout level. Not everybody likes it. It’s a total preference thing.”

“Hmmm.” Krel wondered if he’d like it. Buzzy sounded interesting. “I think I’ll try that.”

“Sweet!” Toby grinned. “It’s gonna be  _ lit _ !”

“Isn’t that word outdated?”

“Not right now. It’s totally in-dated.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not above the trope of somebody with 0 drinking experience getting drunky-drunk ;)


	3. Three

“Did I hear that right? Ricky did the thing you’re not supposed to do and it worked for him on Day One?” Steve pretended to clear a hearing path through the wax in his ear. Krel  _ hoped  _ he was pretending. Ear wax was one of Krel’s least favorite human bodily fluids.

“And with no resume and job experience. He’s a freaking legend,” Toby said. “He doesn’t even know how modern society works. Dang.”

“He’s an entry level copywriter, not the...I don’t know how these positions work. Senior officer of copywriting? Anybody could get the job.” Krel pushed their shopping cart down the next aisle of the grocery outlet. An ache was building behind his eyes after spending the entirety of his Saturday morning and afternoon cooped in his lab dismantling and experimenting with one of the popular Alexa machines. Tonight was the bonfire, and Toby was estimating over a hundred people would show up since Mary had blasted the invite across campus. Krel wasn’t up for mass socialization now that his true nature was public knowledge.

“Dude, not even two bucks! I love this place. Nana doesn’t give much for an allowance, but I’m nothing if not thrifty.” Toby tossed a massive bag of chips into the cart, among other massive bags of finger foods.

They were providing some of the snacks for the bonfire. Krel had offered a couple bags from his restocked kitchen, which wouldn’t be diminished anytime soon, but Toby and Steve had refused. He needed to conserve his food supply since Ricky had only just gotten his job and it wasn’t the highest paying. That might’ve been why he landed it. The employers were exploiting him.

“What are you wearing tonight?” Toby looked up Krel’s body. “Something other than the standard shirt and jeans?”

“I can’t change the transduction design,” Krel said. Mother had designed his clothes, and he didn’t want to tamper with one of her few legacies.

“What if you changed clothes and then downloaded them into your serrator?” Toby said.

“Can you take them off?” Steve pulled at Krel’s sleeve.

“Yes, yes, I can take it all off.” Krel rubbed his eye. A bad move because it seemed wired right into the pain behind them. “If you give me something else to wear, I’ll wear it.”

“What happens if you take off your clothes, then turn into your real form?”

“You mean you never found out with Aja?” Toby snickered.

“Shut up!” Steve’s face turned deep, deep red. “We never got the chance. It was always killing bad guys and fighting the good fight. We barely had time to kiss.”

Krel was too disgusted to say anything. Also his head hurt. He wanted a nap.

After checking out the rest of the aisles, they checked out with Steve and Toby splitting the payment.

“Let’s go emergency shopping for Krel’s party outfit,” Toby said as he drove them to their respective houses.

“Drop me off first. I need to rest my head for a couple hours,” Krel said.

“You alright?” Steve said, looking back at him from the passenger seat.

“I didn’t sleep well last night. Too much in my head.” Krel toyed with the longer strands of his head. He hadn’t tried tying his hair back yet. Someday he might be able to do Aja’s human hair style with the braids and the bun.

“What’s your size? Small?” Toby said, looking at Krel in the mirror hanging from the car’s ceiling.

“I don’t know. My transduction came with this.”

“Probably a small. You’re skinny enough for that. What do you think, Steve? Should we go for form-fitting or loose and swaggy?”

“I think we should try a mix. Tight jeans and a big sweater. I’ve always wanted to see Aja in my sweaters. Her hands wouldn’t come out the sleeves. She’d be beautiful.” Steve sighed.

“I am not a placeholder for my sister!”

“It was my train of thought.”

“Your train should be out of service.”

“Harsh.”

Toby dropped Krel off with the snacks. He went straight to bed, his head beginning a soft pounding. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he woke to soft knocks on his door. The clock said it had been two hours since he got home.

“Krel?” Toby said. The door peeked open. Seeing Krel sit up and rub his eyes, Toby and Steve came in with a cloth bag that was too full to have one outfit inside.

“You feeling better?” Steve said, setting the bag on Krel’s desk chair.

Krel nodded, his head absent of the pounding from before. A new pounding was there, one of uncertainty. He waved his fingers for the bag. “Why am I scared to see what’s inside?”

“Because it’s totally awesome-sauce.” Toby rolled the chair over.

Krel pulled out jeans that were ripped in the fashionable way. He held it out to see the extent of the purposeful damage.

“This doesn’t look warm,” he said.

“Jeans aren’t supposed to be warm, and you have  _ this  _ for warmth.” Toby pulled out an...oversized sweater that made Krel groan. Krel liked practicality. Oversized clothes were cumbersome.

“I told him no but he said it was his allowance money,” Steve said.

“I have the freedom to spend my money as I see fit. And it was one buck.” Toby rubbed his fingers together.

“After the coupon.”

“Krel, if you ever get coupon booklets in the mail, keep them. They have five-dollar coupons for the thrift shop. That gets you a free shirt.”

“Or a one dollar sweater,” Steve said. “We got the jeans from Mary.”

“Shhhh.” Toby hissed in Steve’s face.

“Mary wore these?” Krel didn’t think they were small enough for her tiny waist.

“Her brother did. She said you’re the same size,” Steve said, smiling at Toby. “We asked her for advice since Toby didn’t think my suggestions were good enough. I was right.”

Toby threw up his hands. “You wanted tight jeans! Those are destroyed,  _ loose  _ jeans.”

“I got the oversized sweater right. Mary says Krel has the body for it.”

“Everybody has the body for it. People just like skinny twigs better.”

“I thought you said I was a twink,” Krel said.

Steve whirled on Toby. “You called him a twink? Dude! You can’t say that unless you’re gay. That’s cultural appropriation!”

Krel ignored their bickering and emptied the rest of the bag: a white shirt with short sleeves and a v-neckline that would either be too small or just right, and a sealed plastic bag of underwear called “briefs.” They didn’t look as comfortable as Akridian underthings, so light they were almost not there, but far more supportive than cotton.

“We weren’t sure if…” Steve gestured vaguely.

“We didn’t want to assume aliens wore underwear,” Toby said firmly. “Another thing Steve didn’t learn from Aja.”

Steve and Krel voiced their disgust while Toby shrugged, stating, “That’s the facts.”

“Now, go on,” Toby motioned at the clothes. He took Steve’s arm and pulled him into the hall. “We await Prince Cinderella outside…”

Alone with the door shut, Krel spread the clothes on his bed. It wasn’t quite his style, but he had heard from girls that oversized sweaters were the best. He traded his transduction clothes for the new ones. Old ones? They had a lived-in quality that was comfortable.

The jeans were slashed at his thighs and knees. Cold air breezed up his legs with each movement. The shirt fit snuggly, the sweater reaching beyond his fingertips. It was cozy, though unfamiliar in shape and fabric. His transduction clothes were designed to fit him perfectly. These clothes were improperly fitted, but that was how they were supposed to sit on his body. They were imperfectly perfect. Not functional, but he liked it.

“Somebody say Instagram model, because woowie. You. Are. Hawt,” Toby said when Krel came out.

“I don’t know what that means,” Krel said, finding a bizarre joy in flapping his sleeves.

Steve covered his face.

“What?” Krel said, unable to understand Steve’s mumbling.

Steve lowered his hands. “Too cute.”

“Selfie!” Toby smooshed them together and huddled himself in the middle. He snapped a dozen pics on his phone.

“Be safe! Don’t stay out too late!” Lucy said as they left with the snacks stashed in a pillowcase Toby had brought.

“Remember, midnight is the magic hour,” Ricky said.

“Challenge accepted! We’ll get him back right on the dot!” Toby said. 

It was eight o’clock. That was four hours of fires and drinks and snacks.

“I can do this,” Krel whispered.

# # #

The bonfire was held in a larger clearing, deeper in the woods but close to a small campsite with an outhouse. Mary and Darci were already there, setting up a fold-out table with battery-operated lanterns and laying out paper dishes and napkins.

“A hundred people and one toilet. What could go wrong?” Toby said as they spread the bags out. 

  
“It’s just four hours,” Steve said.

“Alcohol makes turns four hours into thirty minutes.”

“I don’t understand this reference,” Krel said, flapping his sleeves.

“Alcohol makes you pee more. You might pee a lot more since you’re inexperienced.” Toby nudged Krel’s arm.

“I can use the trees if there is a line.” Krel flapped a sleeve at a random tree.

“If the line isn’t long,” Steve amended. “And if you must pee on a tree, leave the Kissing Tree alone. You can’t degrade it. It’s been blessed by me and Aja.”

Steve and Toby opened the snack bags while others started arriving. Krel stood against a tree a ways back, scanning the faces for people he knew. Most of them were Arcadia Oaks students, but a good number were unfamiliar and from out of town. They were popping the Arcadia Bubble tonight.

Before he was Krel the Arkadian living in Arcadia, he was Krel the new student from Cantaloupia. He was treated differently because of his skin color, his accent, his coming from another “country,” but when humans displayed their own prejudices that marked him as Other, even as one of them, and his friends and Senor Uhl rose to defend him, he had been filled with such happiness, such belonging, that he had forgotten his Arkadian nature would bring its own reactions---even from those who had protected him.

Some people saw him as dangerous and a Horseman of the Alien Apocalypse (Toby had explained this to him and he still didn’t understand how it applied to him; where were the other three horsemen?). Others saw him as a curiosity. He doubted they meant to alienate him with their stares and curious asks, but intent didn’t matter. They still hurt.

“Do you want anything? A drink, chips, cookies, fruit?” Steve took a stand next to Krel, the tree wide enough to support the two of them. He held out a paper bowl holding a little of everything.

“No thanks. I’ll just stand here and observe. I still have much to learn of human parties.” 

Krel hadn’t been noticed by the crowd yet. They were focused on building the bonfire, Seamus directing everyone in making it burn big and bright without losing control. People set up blankets and chairs, rolling their belongings in wagons and wheeled crates.

A couple coolers were set in front of the table, their lids flipped to reveal piles of iced cans and bottles. Music blasted from a small stereo.

“Do you  _ want  _ the cops to come?” somebody shouted, and the crowd booed until the music turned down to a soft thumping.

“Fuck the cops,” a guy hollered. The crowd applauded.

“Darci’s father is a cop,” Krel said.

“Detective. It’s different. Still law, but not like...going out and arresting people. I think?”

“Didn’t he try to arrest Toby?”

“Oh right. And then Toby stole his car---and it was a cop car. Okay, yeah, he’s a cop.”

Toby reappeared with white cans for Steve and Krel. “Since I’m the DD, I can bestow drinks upon you. Boom, check it.” 

“White Claw? Seriously? And you didn’t get me mango.” Steve rubbed the rim of the can on his shirt before popping the lid.

“I’m not digging my hand in the freezing cold for mango. They’re all good. You need help with that?”

“I’m okay.” Krel was reading the can. He had heard of White Claw in passing conversations. Humans spoke of its prowess like it was a mythical potion. They said it didn’t taste the way they expected. It hadn’t intrigued him because he hadn’t had alcohol before, he didn’t have anything expectations to be blown away.

He hoped this tasted good. He popped the lid, briefly admiring how humans had designed their metal cans. Akiridions used a similar design, but instead of pulling a tab, you pushed into the top of the lid.

“Should I record this? Baby’s first White Claw?” Toby already had his phone out.

Krel sniffed the drink. It smelled like nothing. He took a tentative sip.

It tasted...like water with a zing on top of a faint bitter taste. The crispness felt like soda. It didn’t taste bad, didn’t taste good--- It was more of a sensation. He took a longer sip. 

“Thar he goes,” Toby said.

“Slow down, dude,” Steve said, not sounding amused.

“Here.” Krel held the empty can to Toby.

“Uh, that was fast. Arkadians know how to put it away.” Toby took it, hand dipping like he thought it’d be a bit heavier.

Krel licked the remaining taste off his teeth. “Can I have another?”

“Sure, but you’ll have to get it yourself. If you can’t walk straight to it, you’re not ready for the...next one.” Toby’s voice trailed as Krel went for the coolers. “Man, he really likes White Claw.”

“Sup, Krel,” some guy said as Krel stooped to scan the coolers for white cans.

“This White Claw is strange. We have nothing like it on Akiridion. Perhaps I should bring some back.” Krel rolled up his sleeves and found two cans of different flavors. He didn’t read the labels, only going by the color of the ribbons on the design that designated flavor. Humans had fancier labeling for goods. Akiridion’s aesthetic was boring. Neon, but boring.

He nodded at the people greeting him. A fuzzy feeling spread in his gut. This was the buzz Steve had mentioned. Aja would say it was lively. He felt lively.

Why had he ever thought himself Othered? He was one of the humans now, standing in their circles and laughing at jokes.

“I love your outfit,” Mary said.

“Toby and Steve chose it for me,” Krel said into his second can. 

“Did they say I helped? Because I did.”

People laughed. He went to the next group, standing and drinking and waiting to be noticed. He got two more cans. Drank one. Replaced it with another.

“Damn, Krel. Thirsty tonight?” Logan said.

“These are good.” Krel held up a can and drank. “This is my fifth, I think. Could be my sixth. I don’t remember.”

“You feel anything yet?” Logan said. “Can you get drunk?”

“I’m buzzing like a bee. Bzzz.”

Logan laughed so hard he had to hold his belly.

“I am Akiridion. Hear me roar!” Krel tipped the can bottoms up.

“Krel,” Mary said, sounding worried. “I don’t think you should drink that fast. I know guys can handle a lot, but you’re small and...not human…”

“Do not Other me,” Krel snarled.

Mary flinched back, her hands up. “Krel…”

“I feel great. You don’t know what I can do.” He walked away, looking for Steve and Toby.

He didn’t know where they were. There were too many people around him to see. If only he could see over people’s heads. He opened another can and downed it to the appreciative whistles of the crowd. If only Toby and Steve could see his skill.

“Krel, my man,” said some guy Krel didn’t recognize. “Nice jeans. You’ve gotta be the first guy I’ve seen rocking slits that high.”

“Rocking is a good thing,” Krel said, staring into his current can for the answer.

The guy laid an arm across Krel’s shoulder, walking him to another group on the outskirts of the clearing. The trees were denser here. The voices they approached were deeper, older sounding than teenagers. Krel’s head was too heavy to look up at the guy’s face. Weird. His head also felt light.

“Are you gonna go all ET tonight?” the guy said.

“I’m not ET.” Krel furrowed his brows. The buzz was gone.

The guy laughed. “Are you gonna show us your alien form?”

Krel shook his head. He listed to the side, away from the guy. 

“How much have you had?” The guy took his can---his very empty, seventh/eighth can---and tossed it aside. “Whatever. You had enough.”

They had stopped walking. Krel blinked at the five or six guys partially hidden among the trees bordering the clearing. They weren’t teenagers for sure. Not adults either. Krel didn’t know what the in-between ages were called. Pre-adults? 

“I heard you glow blue,” said a thick-framed guy sitting on an exposed tree root.

“And your hair’s white,” said the guy holding Krel against his side. If he let go, Krel might tip over. 

Krel’s feet felt disconnected from his brain, an interesting if not concerning side effect of eight or nine cans of White Claw. That sounded like a lot. He’d had seven cans. About seven cans. Possibly six. 

“I don’t get why you’re interested in that when he has  _ four arms _ .”

“Have none of you seen the photos?”

“What? There’re photos? Why the hell didn’t you share?”

“Alien conspiracy sites, right before they get taken down. Somebody’s watching out for him.”

“Area 49B,” Krel mumbled.

“What? You’re showing us now?”

“Can’t. Wears off after twelve hours, and it’s been less. Where’s Steve?” Krel tried to look back toward the clearing, but his head was a traitor to his demands. He missed his buzz. This feeling was awful. He felt like a child.

“Steve Palchuk?” Somebody laughed. “You’re friends with him?”

“And Toby. Toby Domzal--- Domzals---” Krel couldn’t remember.

His chest tightened like it was trying to suffocate his core.

He was drunk. Past the safety of a buzz. He should have stuck to one can. What was he thinking, downing so many he had forgotten the count, when finishing only one had surprised his friends?

“Oh kleb.” Krel twisted out from the guy’s arm. His head carried him down to his hands and knees.

“Shit. He’s down.”

“Dude’s a lightweight.”

Hands pulled him up. He twisted, his head suddenly too heavy to carry.

“Noooooo.” He crawled away from the guys trying to hold him up. They were bickering, arguing if they should hold him back, keep him on the ground---

He stumbled to his feet and tripped into the clearing. His vision blurred the heads turning his way. The voices melted together into a sea of murmurs and laughter and his name. His name bumped over the swell like a stone skipping water.

“Krel! I found him!”

“Krel, holy shish kabob!”

“It’s hitting him hard.”

“Freaking White Claw.”

“Can aliens drink White Claw?”

“He had like ten cans.”

“WHAT? He’s never drunk before!”

The crowd reeled at the revelation.

“Krel. Krel? How much did you drink?”

Krel stuck his hands in the air, whacking somebody’s face. Toby’s. He knew that yelp. He also knew he was on his back in the dirt, staring at the sky that blurred with starry specks. Far, far away was Akiridion.

“White Claw hits hard,” Toby’s disembodied voice said. “There’s nothing and then there’s everything!”

Krel blinked hard, as though that would ground him into his body.

“I can’t believe you lost him. It’s not that big a place!” That was Steve. Krel wondered if Steve could handle White Claw better than him, or if this was an Akiridion thing. They should have fired cans of White Claw at Morando. He would have taken himself out and Mama and Papa wouldn’t have needed to---

Krel hiccuped. He hated White Claw.

“There’s like two hundred people out here! He kept moving---freaking would’ve helped if his disguise thing ran out. Hey, buddy, if you gotta hurl, let us know.”

“Put him on his side. He might choke on his tongue.”

“He’s not puking yet.”

“He might! You don’t drink that much for your first time and not puke. This is  _ so  _ bad. The Blanks are going to murder us and ship our bodies to Akiridan for public cremation!”

“Ughhh.” Krel rolled on his side, dirt digging into his cheek.

People were standing closer, their legs filling his sight. He closed his eyes.

“What the hell happened?”

Krel opened his eyes to see Seamus kneeling in front of him. He tipped his head to see Seamus’ face lit in the soft orange glow of the fire. The angles of his face were pronounced with the shadows. He definitely had hit some sort of puberty phase. Krel wondered if he’d also hit a puberty phase when he became a senior.

He closed his eyes, wishing to fall asleep for the rest of the night so everything would be okay when he woke.

“We should take him back. Party’s over,” Toby said. “Hey! No photos, perp. Put that away!”

“Let’s get you home, okay?” Seamus said.

Krel was helped into sitting. His head swam toward the ground.

“Here, I got you.” Seamus let Krel lean against him as he stood. “Hang on.”

“Okay, who gave you the right to do that?” Toby demanded.

“Did you drink?”

“I’m the DD, dude. I’m taking him home. Me and Steve, for that matter.”

“I’ll get him to your car.”

Krel stumbled against Seamus as they walked, their arms chained together. After a couple more near falls, Seamus moved in front and partially knelt. “I’ll carry you back.”

Krel didn’t drape himself over Seamus so much as he fell. The world tipped some, and then Seamus was standing, hiking up Krel’s legs.

“We call this piggyback riding,” Seamus said.

“Is this how you carry pigs?” Krel said softly. His head was next to Seamus’ ear and he didn’t want to deafen him.

Seamus turned his head, his hair brushing against Krel’s cheek. “I don’t know why it’s called that. I’m sure there’s a story behind it. Something interesting. You hanging on?”

“I’m hanging.” Krel liked the warmth of Seamus’ hands through his clothes. The temperature was dropping. He hoped that was a sign the White Claw was burning out of him.

Seamus hiked Krel higher on his back.

“Oh.” The friction was strange.

“Sorry. You’re slipping.”

There was a flash. Seamus and Krel jerked their heads away.

“Sorry!” Toby said. “That was too cute to ignore.”

“Hypocrite,” Steve said.

“Hey, I’m his friend. Those were perps.”

Getting Krel into the backseat of Toby’s car was hard. Seamus slowly slipped him off, but slow didn’t matter when Krel’s head was airy. He tipped away from the opened door. Toby pushed him in at the wrong angle, and he tripped over his feet, falling into Seamus.

“Tobes!” Steve shrieked. “What the heck!”

“I got him.” Seamus somehow rearranged Krel’s weak limbs and got him in.

“Never drinking again,” Krel said.

“You might change your mind. Next time, take it slow.” Seamus smiled. “Try to keep it under six cans.”

Krel smiled back. Then his stomach rumbled and his eyes bugged.

“Okay, get out.” Seamus pulled him out in time for him to fall on his knees and hurl on the street

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Toby freaked.

Steve shook Toby by the shoulders. “Shut up! We’re near houses!”

“Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Toby whispered, hands balled to his chest. “This was a terrible idea. I regret everything. Aliens can’t drink White Claw!”

“He’ll be fine,” Seamus said, holding back Krel’s hair with one hand and rubbing his back with the other. “I know this sucks, but it won’t be forever. Let it out.”

Krel pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. Like Toby, he too regretted everything. Emptying his stomach in front of Seamus made everything about tonight worse.

“I think I had ten,” Krel said.

“ _ Ten _ cans?” Toby hissed. “And you didn’t pee once?”

“Guys, we should get driving. It’s Saturday night,” Steve said. “People are going to be driving in and out. They’ll call the cops on us. The cops will destroy the bonfire party. Area 49B will hear that Krel isn’t behaving.” His voice increasingly became shrill. 

A car pulled out of a garage down the street and headed their way.

“Headlights! Get him in!” Toby pulled Krel to his feet.

Together, the boys got Krel in and shut the door before the car passed. Krel peeked over the backrest to see the car stop at the intersection Stop sign. It didn’t move.

The other door opened. Seamus slipped in with an apologetic smile. “I can’t lead them to the woods.”

Toby and Steve sat in the front, Toby’s eyes reflecting in the rearview mirror. “Car is still there. I hate these people. Everybody, act natural.”

“Worst thing to say,” Steve said.

Krel groaned, slumping against the door. His stomach felt better that way. Still painful, on the verge of another puke, but even a margin of comfort was welcome.

They made it to Krel’s home without cops blasting sirens. Toby checked with Mary on his phone. She confirmed the bonfire was still raging. Everybody had moved on from Krel’s lightweight drama to Shannon’s improv guitar performance.

“We’re safe,” Toby sighed.

“Not until the Blanks find out,” Steve said.

“Who are the Blanks?” Seamus said.

Krel moaned. “Let me sleep. Oh fuck.”

“And there goes his first F-bomb,” Toby muttered as Krel fell out of the car to vomit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments! They keep me motivated :)
> 
> Note: I've never had White Claw. I'm going off what I've heard. ;)
> 
> Next chapter, Seamus in Krel's house!


	4. Four

Krel woke with such a headache, he cried into his pillow with his hands balled underneath until Ricky knocked gently on the door and came in with a tall glass of water. Ricky smiled gently, like anything wider would crack through the composure Krel was forcing over his face.

“Krelito, my favorite son. You overdid it last night,” Ricky said, guiding Krel to take slow sips from the glass. “Your friends told us you had ten cans of a drink that fools people into drinking more than they should. You put ten timebombs inside your belly, and when the countdown hit zero, this happened.”

Krel squinted at Ricky’s bizarre saying, and that made his head throb more. 

“Take it easy. Easy, easy, easy peasy. Lucy is making you breakfast.” Ricky brushed Krel’s hair back. He rubbed his fingers together thoughtfully. “It seems you’ve acquired the human condition of  _ sweating _ .”

“Gross.” Krel lay back, curling into a ball under his sheets. “I don’t want to sweat.”

“You’re sweaty. Possibly oily from teenage body changes. I’ve researched this, Krelito, and Lucy says if you don’t take care of yourself during this difficult time, you might develop acne and permanently mar your skin. After breakfast, you’re taking a long wash. Okay?” Ricky touched Krel’s shoulder.

Krel jerked his shoulder from the gentle touch. The motion made his head pulse harder.

He realized he wasn’t glowing as bright as usual. The White Claw made his glow pulse. It dimmed to a near gray before climbing to a moderate brightness. It scared him. The only thing on Akiridion that had similarly affected his glow was a virus that had kept him bedridden for weeks. If human alcohol could do the same, was it possible that a few cans more would have killed him? He felt terrible, worse than when he woke from the explosion at Area 49B that had knocked him unconscious.

He never, ever, ever was drinking White Claw again.

# # #

“Good morning!” Lucy sang, spinning from the stove with a plate of eggs and toast.

Krel’s head-throbbing synced with her voice. The frequency was brutal.

“Shhhh,” Ricky said, and grated on Krel’s patience.

“Oh, sorry dear!” Lucy whispered, which didn’t feel like a whisper to the death dance in Krel’s head. Getting out of bed was a mistake. He should’ve been sleeping some more.

He forced himself to eat breakfast with mind-numbing slowness. He was so. Tired. And Ricky and Lucy watching him eat with pin-point worry was adding to the pain.

If he could travel back in time, he’d make last night never happen. He’d stay in his lab with his projects and build another drone or pair of thought-revealing glasses.

But Seamus, he thought.

But Seamus what?

And then he remembered Seamus carrying him to Toby’s car, slipping off his shoes before tucking him under his sheets, brushing sweaty hair from his face and saying the morning would suck but he’d make it through. He owed that to White Claw.

After breakfast, he dragged himself back to bed for another long sleep. He dreamed about the math duel he’d had with Seamus, the handshake they’d had at the end of it, and Seamus’ smile as he called Krel “okay.”

“Okay” had been amazing back then. It had been all Krel wanted, though he hadn’t known until then. “Okay” wasn’t enough now, and it had been special then only because it was a far upgrade from being a weirdo. There was an Akiridan saying that on the darkest planet, even the dimmest star shone bright. Krel was the planet, and “okay” was the dimmest star. Seamus caring for him was a brighter star. He didn’t know what the next stars would be, but he wanted them all from Seamus.

And as he drifted to sleep, he understood what humans meant by “poetic” language. Maybe English wasn’t so far from his grasp. All he had needed was someone to show him what it meant to be poetic.

# # #

“Krel… Krelito…”

Krel cracked an eye open. Ricky’s head was sticking around the door, into his room.

Seeing Krel awake, Ricky shoved the door open. “Rise and shine! Your friend is here!” He lowered his voice. “And he is a  _ charmer!  _ I might not have a wife at the end of this.”

Krel sat upright. He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. His head still ached, but it wasn’t bad enough to send him back down.

“Move.” He nudged Ricky aside and went toward Lucy’s bubbly laughter, too late realizing that he was in his Akiridion form. His sweaty, gross, Akiridion form. He could have gone his entire life without knowing what it was like to be sweaty with four armpits. It was horrible enough with two, as a human.

Seamus was seated at the island counter, tiny glasses of various liquids in front of him. He was halfway down the line, at an orange glass that he downed in one go. Krel had seen those palm-sized glasses before, but only in movies where humans took straight shots of hard alcohol.

“What are you doing?” Krel said, horrified that Lucy would do that to a guest. It was  _ not  _ a human custom from what he’d seen.

Seamus’ eyes widened. He choked on his drink. “Krel!” Then he coughed. “This is orange juice. It’s very bland, likely organic, but that might be the cranberry aftertaste.” His eyes were roaming Krel’s body, lingering on his secondary pair of arms and his matted white hair.

Self-conscious about the long study, Krel folded his arms and shifted toward the wall. “I should put on my human guise. I’ll be back.”

“No!” Seamus cringed after Krel cringed. “Sorry. How’s your head feeling?”

“Dead. I think you could behead me and I’d be better for it.”

“Oh, sweetie. Don’t joke about that,” Lucy said.

“Go on, take a seat.” Ricky walked Krel over to a stool next to Seamus.

“Damn,” Seamus said, shaking his head and reaching for the next tiny glass. “I knew what you looked like, but up close is completely different.”

Krel picked up the glass nearest him. Its liquid was white and opaque.

“Your mom invited me to play Guess The Drink,” Seamus explained.

“She’s not my mom,” Krel said.

Lucy tapped the counter. “Put the glass down, Krel. Your friend is playing.”

“Aren’t these glasses for drinking games?” Krel said, putting the glass an inch off target. Lucy nudged it back into place.

“This is a drinking game, Guess the Drink,” Seamus said, his eyes creasing with amusement. He drank his current glass, a cloudy brown liquid with particles floating inside. He coughed and shook his head. “Never was a fan of kombucha.”

“You’re a master of identity,” Lucy said, pushing the next glass at him.

Seamus worked through the last four glasses. The white one Krel had snatched was milk. Not dairy, Seamus had guessed correctly. It was almond milk.

“Krel only drinks almond milk,” Lucy said, collecting the cups. “He hates the taste of dairy milk. He  _ might  _ be overly sensitive.”

Seamus coughed behind his smile. Krel shot Lucy a look that she missed when she turned.

“Here, let me help.” Seamus rinsed them in the sink then loaded them in the dishwasher. Lucy gave Krel a wide-eyed look. Krel rarely washed the dishes because whenever he did, Lucy caught him doing it wrong. Steve’s mom was the same. It was a human thing, Krel supposed, and Lucy had picked it up like Krel had picked up crying and sweating and sensitivity to dairy milk.

Lucy and Ricky went out to tend to the vegetable garden in the backyard. The garden had been a discussion topic for some time, suggested by Lucy as a way to save on the groceries and get in some family time. She thought it’d be a fun bonding activity for the three as a family. Krel didn’t like gardening. He hadn’t been in the backyard for days, and he never used the pool. He was a terrible swimmer.

“Did you come to check on me? Because I’m fine,” Krel said.

“I knew you were going to be fine. It’s nice to check either way.” Seamus retook his stool, spinning a little with momentum. He looked a bit like a kid, tongue partly sticking out. Krel didn’t understand why that made Seamus appear younger. Maybe because he hadn’t seen many adults do it, and it was always younger humans who stuck tongues out, usually to tease others.

Krel passed a hand over his hair. His hair naturally stood upright, but when he was sick it drooped. Logically, White Claw would make it droop, and it was. It was drooping backward. 

He scowled. “I hate White Claw. Humans are masochistic.”

Seamus laughed. Krel thought it’d hurt his head, but there was only a mild discomfort. He liked Seamus’ laugh. Seamus had a nice voice too. His smile was equally nice. Krel liked his overall aesthetic, which Toby had explained was a general  _ feeling  _ you got looking at someone’s appearance.

“I think you’re right about that on all counts,” Seamus said.

Krel’s stomach pitched, as though for a second he was falling from a cliff. It wasn’t a bad fall. It was like he was falling into a pit of fluffy pillow stuffing. 

Seamus smiled at him, he smiled back, and then things got awkward. Krel’s only experience hanging out privately with someone he didn’t really know was in class. Partner work always had those long stretches of quiet after Krel finalized the answer---in Physics and Pre-calculus. In all others, especially English and US History, he often didn’t get the last word. His partners knew more about human literature and history than he ever would.

“Are you doing anything today, other than resting?” Seamus said.

“I don’t feel like doing anything.”

“Yeah, I guess that was a silly thing to ask. Should I leave so you can rest? You look like you might need another few hours.”

“I don’t think I can sleep again. I won’t have any hours left for nighttime. Then I’ll be up until dawn, and I’ll want to sleep in the afternoon but that’ll ruin my sleep for that night.” Krel didn’t know what to follow that up with. He wanted Seamus to stay. Having him in the Mothership, without Toby or Steve injecting themselves into the moment, or Lucy and Ricky flouncing around him making a mockery of human behavior, felt like a rarity he couldn’t ignore.

Seamus stayed smiling---wider, if possible---and Krel hoped he was about to say something. When Steve’s mom and Toby’s nana invited him to stay, they had a reason. Dinner was about to be cooked, cookies were in the oven, there was a Thanks For Saving the World gift in the living room he was to open. Steve’s family had partnered with Toby’s nana to curate a gift basket of food and self-care products, the latter of which Krel still hadn’t used. He could ask Seamus how they were used...though that kind of sounded intimate since self-care products involved the body.

Whatever. He wanted Seamus to stay. 

“Do you want to see my room?” Krel said.

Seamus seemed to trip over his response, blinking rapidly before he said, “Sure!”

He worried he’d done something wrong. Steve and Toby hadn’t acted weird when they first went in his room, though they had invited themselves. Toby, specifically, had asked to see Krel’s room and gone down the hall without Krel saying a word.

Going to Krel’s room felt like a full minute.

“It’s not much, but that makes it easier to clean,” Krel said, trying to see his room from an outsider’s perspective. The layout was typical of a human teenager’s room. Bed, nightstand, desk, chair, closet, small bookshelf that held everything his desk and closet couldn’t, and some wall posters with artsy depictions of space. It was bland compared to Toby’s and Steve’s and even Aja’s abandoned room, which he hadn’t touched since she left.

While Seamus looked at the books and trinkets strewn on his bookshelves. There were tiny lab projects that were finished for now, or as finished as he could get them before losing interest. Nothing was dangerous. He wasn’t dumb to leave anything laying around where Toby could touch it and take out half the wall.

Krel fiddled with his fingers, watching Seamus’ face. So far, Seamus seemed intrigued. He studied the projects, shifting around to see from different angles.

“You can pick them up. They’re not just decoration,” Krel said.

Seamus carefully handled them as he asked Krel about their functions.

“What does this do?”

“It’s a hover camera. It follows you and takes photos on command.”

“You could give GoPro a run for their money. How about this one?”

“That’s just a portable radio. Nothing special.”

“You made it from scratch. That’s pretty special. And what does this one do?”

“It can connect to any digital device and project the screen like a hologram. A basic project...basically.”

Seamus turned from the shelf, his face close enough that Krel startled back a step.

“Stop talking yourself down. These are amazing, and it doesn’t matter how ‘basic’ their use is. Do you have a workstation, maybe in the basement?”

“Kind of.” Krel grinned. “Follow me.”

# # #

Krel was in the zone. The Krel Zone.

“Try not to touch anything. I can’t guarantee your safety.” Krel crossed his legs in his hover chair.

Seamus was walking the length of Krel’s worktable, which wrapped around the room. He wanted to add a work table to the center of the lab, but that’d get in the way of Toby’s hover-chair spinning. He needed a wide margin for misjudgment.

“Holy cow.” Seamus ran his hands over his hair. “This is nothing like the tech at space camp. This whole ship is beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

“Most humans will never see tech like this. You’re one of the few chosen.” Krel laughed as Seamus wordlessly framed his hands around a six-legged drone. “That’s a work in progress. It’s going to walk  _ and  _ fly. Crawl on walls, too.”

“Sick. Are the legs going to fold away when it flies?”

“The legs let it fly. Specifically, the rotors are folded inside them. They rotate into position to take off.” Krel manipulated the drone’s legs. The slender rotor blades slid out of slots in the legs. “The design is similar to basic human drones, with the arms and rotors. This has a longer life, travels faster, and can be controlled from a greater distance. Not yet, but it soon will be able to do all that and more. Do you want to be the first pilot?”

Seamus smiled crooked like that was a dumb question. “You don’t have to ask. Assume I’m all in for testing everything. Unless they’re prototypes that might explode.” His smile weakened. “And weapons. I won’t test weapons.”

“Are you a pacifist?” Krel kept a careful tone, unsure how the term would be taken. On Akiridion-5, pacifism wasn’t common. Violence wasn’t celebrated, but it wasn’t a last resort either. There was honor in fighting and giving up your life for society.

“I’m not a fan of scary alien weapons. You don’t vaporize people with your guns, do you?” Seamus joked, but Krel could tell he was partly serious.

“No, none on Earth, and I don’t make weaponry when I don’t have a need. It’s not something I take pride in, creating things that destroy. I like creation. It’s more rewarding to bring something into being, than to take away something that already exists.”

“Destruction is easy. Creation is the hardest task of all.”

“Exactly.”

Something passed between them. A shared understanding. 

They weren’t so different, two brains who enjoyed science and logic and saw the poetry underneath.

When Seamus had to go, he paused on the front porch. “Do you want to see a movie next week?”

“In the theater, with popcorn?” Krel hadn’t been to the theater many times, the most memorable one when he went with Aja and Vex the first time they went out as humans. Human theaters weren’t as technical as those on Akiridan-5, but they were still fun.

“Yeah, and I can pick you up. Is Saturday night cool?”

“Saturday nights are always cool.” Krel’s insides were squishy and warm. He liked it, and if this was how he’d feel around Seamus, he wanted more of Seamus’ time. “Can you sit with me for lunch tomorrow? I’m sure Toby and Steve won’t mind.”

“I’ll be there.” Seamus bumped a fist against Krel’s shoulder, sending another flood of squishy warmth in Krel’s belly.

Back in his room, Krel lay on his bed, smiling at the ceiling. He’d need to tell Steve and Toby about Seamus, but for now he was content to reflect on the too good feeling flowing through his limbs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments! <3 Please keep them coming.
> 
> This fic is mostly freeform. I have ideas of future scenes, but not a big picture image. This fic is meant to help me through difficulties I'm having writing my latest book. Funny that I have to fight myself to get 100 words down of my book while I can spit out 1,000 words of fanfic without much thinking. 
> 
> Part of the struggle is knowing that my agent is pitching my previous book to publishers, and it's taking a loooong time. Publishing is incredibly slow, and it doesn't help my nerves.


	5. Five

The Krel Zone wasn’t limited to feeling utterly himself in his workstation. He hadn’t thought he could feel so perfectly _him_ outside the Mothership, but here he was back at school, knowing that Mary and her friends were blatantly watching him at his locker, and not caring.

He had a new friend, Seamus, and somehow adding him to his tiny collection of two close friends had made all the difference. He could almost forget he had ever felt that bizarre emptiness from last week. It was still in him, only covered, and he didn’t have to think hard to brush off the covering and inspect it, but as Toby often said when his attention span dribbled to nothing, “Who cared?”

“Dude, did you hurt your cheeks or something ‘cause you’ve been smiling the whole time,” Toby said.

Krel was startled only a little. He passed it off with the soft click of his locker, his retrieved hoverboard under his arm. It was folded into a smaller rectangle, practically harmless, but he had altered it into a makeshift weapon. If Area 49B tried to get the drop on him, as Toby squealed about every time something happened that could get them in legal trouble, he’d transform his hoverboard into a hover _sword_. It was controlled by a program in his watch, and upon transformation, a hologram with the controls would project upward. It only took two fingers to control the dynamics.

“You’re all smiley smiley smiley today. Is this the post-hangover Akiridion glow up?”

“I’m in a good mood. I aced my physics exam. 100%, though I didn’t get extra credit. It only counts if I miss a question, which I didn’t. Never happened in the history of Arcadia Oaks.”

“Don’t you always get everything right? No offence, but if I was a genius who could do no wrong, I wouldn’t feel happy about getting everything right. You gotta fail to feel despair before the high.”

Toby’s nose wrinkled like he smelled something icky. They said their goodbyes and Krel hovered home, thinking he should’ve told Toby and Steve about what happened. He didn’t think any deeper, about why he felt like he had to withhold it. It just felt right, holding it to himself for now. He hadn’t seen Seamus during lunch, due to an unfortunate “friend emergency” that kept Seamus away. Krel had been disappointed only minorly. They still had Saturday, and Seamus had promised Krel he’d visit tomorrow for lunch.

“Looks like somebody had a great day at school,” Ricky said over dinner.

Lucy hung her head over the table to peer at Krel’s face. “Oh, Krel honey! You’re glowing.”

Krel stuffed his mouth with food to puff his smile into something unrecognizable as he imagined what tomorrow would bring: more of that connection that made him feel seen. The Blanks tried getting information out of him but he gave little more than an eyeroll. They wouldn’t understand since they’d never been his age. They were younger than him, actually, and had never felt connected to someone who wasn’t built for them.

Ricky and Lucy were literally programmed for each other. Krel and Seamus were two random beings who somehow, against all odds, found each other and clicked like magnets---but without the magnetism. Though, that was something to study, whether friends truly “found” each other or were guided along by an unseen force.

Pondering this into the morning, Krel decided that he didn’t care. He liked the results of whatever was in charge of friendships and relationships and other -ships he hadn’t yet discovered. There were causes for everything, but he didn’t need to know them. It was like he had seen in a “stage magic explained” video, when Toby wisely said, “The magic is in not knowing.”

# # #

“Okay, twinkmuffin. You still have that smile.” Toby unwrapped his pizza pocket, keeping the wrap crinkling to a minimum.

Steve said something into his sandwich, a monstrous thing even by Toby’s standards, but it sounded more like gratitude for good food. The cooks of Arcadia Oaks had a bizarre talent for sandwiches, and Krel still hadn’t tried out all the different assemblies of food stuff between bread.

“I’m happy,” Krel said. “Must that be suspicious?”

“No, this is a different happy. It’s weirdly mushy.”

Krel wondered if he was making a mistake keeping Seamus a surprise. He didn’t feel worried about it. So he shrugged and smiled. It was too late to explain anyway. He felt someone approaching from behind at the same time Steve’s expression grew with shock.

A strong hand cupped Krel’s shoulder. “Hey, sorry I missed you yesterday!”

“Right back at you!” Krel immediately felt like an idiot. He bit his tongue as Seamus sat across from him, between Toby and Steve.

“You missed us yesterday,” Toby said.

“What was yesterday?” Steve said.

“Yeah, there was some...stuff.” Seamus rubbed the back of his neck, a popular habit of male humans when they didn’t want to explain.

“You’re here now. That’s all we need,” Krel said, lowering his voice and gaze as Toby stared at him. 

Steve was seemingly stuck on a single thought as he ate, his gaze barely flicking away from a fixed point in space.

They ate in mixed silence, Seamus and Toby doing most of the talking. Krel didn’t feel left out, though. Seamus had this way of making people feel included with his eyes, even when they hadn’t spoken for a while. It was an enviable skill. Krel couldn’t think of anybody else who could do that.

And Seamus didn’t seem distracted when he spoke, like other people Krel had observed who lost a part of their awareness. Toby sometimes lost track of other people around him, so he’d be surprised when he stopped talking and realized nobody was listening. Seamus didn’t, so Krel felt like every second he spent taking in Seamus’s face was a moment he could get caught.

He understood that humans underwent a dramatic growth phase in their adolescent, called puberty. There was only one stage of it, and it covered several years, but Toby seemed to believe there were three stages, like three baseball strikes. Though from Toby’s explanation, it sounded like Seamus had gotten a homerun with the two first stages. A homerun with the third stage would be expected, then, and it would look… How?

“Krel and I are going to the movies Saturday,” Seamus said, and Krel backtracked through what he’d heard to determine how they’d gotten there.

“Woah, really?” Steve rolled his gaze to Toby.

“We didn’t know that.” Toby rolled his gaze to Krel. “Why don’t we know that? I was going to plan something, and it was a good thing I didn’t because you had a--- A thing scheduled.”

“It seemed kind of early to bring up,” Krel said. “You usually don’t tell us about plans until the day before.”

“I’m trying to be more conscientious of people’s schedules. Next time you have a--- A thing, you tell us the moment it’s planned. The group chat’s there for that reason. Immediate communication of important things.”

“Is Saturday an open invite?” Steve said. “No pressure if it isn’t. I just want some clarification about how to view this…”

“Thing,” Toby said solidly.

“Thing.” Steve nodded. “What kind of thing is it? Is it a…” He gestured for Toby to fill in the silence.

Toby gestured back, eyebrows furrowed.

“You know how English teachers hate the word ‘thing’ because it’s vague?” Steve said.

“‘Thing’ is a valid word and we shouldn’t be ashamed to use it,” Krel said.

Seamus smiled at Krel, none of the awkwardness rubbing onto him. A minor blessing, because Krel was going to give his friends a lecture once Seamus was gone.

“Word policing has gone out of control,” Seamus said. “There isn’t a ‘standard’ way to speak, and if ‘thing’ is the best word to use, it should be used. And if you use the wrong word, then you might be further from the truth.”

“But we don’t know the truth,” Steve said.

“Exactly. If you don’t know the truth, then don’t say something else is the truth.”

“So that’s why Saturday is a ‘thing.’ It could be a date or two friends getting together, but you don’t know. And calling it one or the other can be wildly off,” Steve said. Then he visibly did a double take. “Those aren’t the only two options, obviously. You could be doing a movie review for extra credit, comparing a book with its adaptation. Dude, I don’t even know what’s playing. What are you seeing?”

Krel wondered if this would’ve happened yesterday, had Seamus showed up. Maybe he should be grateful for the timing.

“I haven’t looked at the listings yet,” Seamus said, looking embarrassed. “I suggested it on the fly. Hopefully there’s something good.”

“I’m sure there is,” Krel said, because even if the movie was awful, they could discuss it afterward.

Fortunately, Steve shut his mouth for the rest of lunch, saving Krel from further embarrassment.

# # #

“You never say _the word_ until _they_ say the word,” Toby said firmly.

“I already apologized. Sheesh. Don’t dig into my wounds.” Steve leaned back against Krel’s worktable, knocking back one of the drone’s legs.

“Shoo shoo. I said not to touch anything.” Krel bumped Steve aside and inspected the leg. He didn’t think Steve bumped any components out of place, but this particular leg had been giving him trouble for weeks. It wouldn’t fold away into the drone, and after tinkering with too many parts, Krel was starting from scratch.

Toby had integrated himself into Krel’s hover chair, lecturing Steve about proper wingman-ing while playing on his phone. The volume was down to zero, since Krel couldn’t hear any blasters blasting or swords slashing. Usually Toby had his volume in the mid-levels to fully immerse himself in the tiny screen.

Krel was thinking of building Toby a holoprojector for his phone, so he could play his games as a multi-dimensional experience. It’d be a holiday gift, and if Krel started soon, he’d have enough time to triple-check its functionality and add a bonus feature, like surround sound through hovering stereo buds. For Steve, he’d make a portable album carrying photos of him and Aja. It was sappy enough to guarantee snotty tears from Steve.

“We’ll have to get Krel another cute outfit before Saturday,” Toby said.

“I’ll wear the same one from the bonfire.”

“No!” Toby cried. “You need something better.”

“Let’s go shopping after this,” Steve said.

“No,” Krel said, but of course, his friends talked him into it. For all their reasons to dress up nice, the convincing one was showing Seamus that Krel took their friendship seriously. This was the first friendship Krel had wanted to desperately succeed, because he would be the first without Aja’s help.

Krel didn’t need Aja to continue living in Arcadia, just as he didn’t need Mama or Papa or Vex to stay afloat. He didn’t need Lucy or Ricky either. If it had just been the Mothership and Krel left, Krel would’ve found a way to survive. He was resourceful.

# # #

Seamus ate lunch with Krel’s group one more time that week. Steve and Toby didn’t say anything awkward, thanks to Logan, Darci, and Mary joining part way through. There was less air space for wayward comments, but the others gave Krel curious looks that hinted they knew of Saturday.

He still didn’t know what movie they were seeing, and he wondered if Seamus had even looked up the playing titles.

“Tell him you want to watch _Doomsday 2.0_ ,” Toby said. “Horror movies are great for cuddling.”

“It’s not a date,” Krel said sourly.

They were at Krel’s bedroom a few hours before Seamus was due to pick up Krel. After Krel dressed in his new clothes, Steve and Toby argued over his hair. It was long enough to style, and so it must be styled. “If you can, you must,” Toby had said, tousling Krel’s hair in every direction to find the hairstyle hiding within. He wanted to keep Krel’s hair loose, Steve thought it should be up “because Aja always looked good with her hair up,” and Krel wanted it to be simple. So Toby and Steve decided, without Krel’s final input, that Krel should have half his hair done up in a bun, and the rest hanging loose.

“Back in the day, when you dressed up nice for the movies, it was a date,” Toby said.

“That’s still a date, according to modern day definitions,” Steve said.

“There’s a blurrier line.”

“Nah, it’s just because they’re both guys. If Krel were a girl, it’d _totally_ be a date.” Steve grinned. “Don’t worry, Krel. It’s totally a date.”

“That looks gross,” Krel said when Toby squirted goopy hair product into his hands. 

“It’ll make your waves pop. Trust me.” Toby combed Krel’s hair with his fingers. He rolled the top half of Krel’s hair into a bun, then scrunched the remaining hair in his palms. “I saw this on Tik Tok. It’s supposed to help the waves form.”

“Don’t you style it with the iron first?” Steve clicked the hair iron open and close.

“I think my hair is okay without that,” Krel said. He could feel the heat wafting off it.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Steve said. “Only if it doesn’t touch your skin, but I’ve practiced with my mom.”

“I think we should leave that out, actually,” Toby said. “Krel’s got some nice, healthy locks going. Not a single split end.”

“He’s here!” Ricky shouted into the room. “I’ll get it in slow motion. Buy you some time.”

“It’s fine. I’m finished.” Krel escaped, tentatively poking at his hair as he answered the door.

“Hey--- Oh.” Seamus took in Krel.

Krel's face warmed. He ducked his gaze as though that'd hide him.

“Heyo, buddo.” Ricky slid in. “It’s good to see you again. You look very different from before.”

“It’s his hair,” Lucy gushed. “You parted it differently, and it looks _spectacular._ ”

Seamus touched the back of his neck, chuckling softly. He did look different, and it wasn’t just the hair. He seemed cut out of an advertisement for casual clothes, which was funny to Krel because “casual” rarely looked so when humans tried to sell it. Seamus wore dark jeans, a gray shirt, and a black jacket that fit too well to be worn straight off a rack, as Krel was doing.

“We match,” Krel said, who also had jeans, though his were lighter and more form-fitting, and his sweater was solid white with vertical black stripes.

“We do.” Seamus smiled.

After promising Ricky and Lucy that they’d be back before midnight, Krel followed Seamus out into the darkening evening. He glanced back to wave at the Blanks before they closed the door---and in the glow of his bedroom’s window, he saw Toby and Steve giving him four thumbs-up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I left on a "cliffhanger" because hopefully that'll motivate me to get the next chapter out relatively soon. (sigh)


End file.
